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<title>It'll keep you up all (K)night by queerbioengineer</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23177743">It'll keep you up all (K)night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerbioengineer/pseuds/queerbioengineer'>queerbioengineer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Black Magic [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Adventure Zone (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(so far at least), Canon Compliant, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Hallucinations, Literal Sleeping Together, Lucid Dreaming, Pining, Set post-episode 9: Taz G, Sharing a Bed, Sleepwalking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:26:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23177743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerbioengineer/pseuds/queerbioengineer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitzroy's dreams are already strange enough as it is. </p>
<p>So what the FUCK is this supposed to mean??</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Argo Keene &amp; Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt, Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt/Rainer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Black Magic [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>118</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It'll keep you up all (K)night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey guys! Thanks soo much for all the feedback on my first two ficlets so far :) (if you can't tell, I'm more than a little obsessed with this ship already, and wanna keep up with it as the story progresses in real time). So I hope you enjoy this little blurb as well!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Slipping into a trance wasn’t a very straightforward process for Fitzroy. After all, his trance wasn’t like it was for elves.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Most other half-elves he talked to didn’t even trance at all, they simply slept. But he was different.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Why was he different? He wasn’t sure. Or he couldn’t remember. Maybe it was to do with his magic. Maybe it was just something wrong with him. But he could keep himself up all night, thinking like that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, he didn’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He would blink now and then through half-lidded eyes, his vision going glassy and distant from wherever he sat or lay down for the evening. His consciousness drifted in and out as it pleased, passively observing his surroundings without really registering any of them. Things that were real looked a little less concrete, and things he imagined looked a little more real. Different visions and vague shapes of creatures and objects would blend in seamlessly with whatever lay before his eyes, as if the dreams he had were stepping out of his very own mind, and into real life.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It likely would’ve overwhelmed him, if he were more coherent for the experience. But it always felt a little bit like being drunk, with a soft warmth around the edges making him less likely to question, less likely to wake himself up with his own worries and anxieties.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Most of the time, this worked just fine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But not that night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That night, Fitzroy found himself falling a-trance fitfully, a deep sense of unease permeating his entire body, all the way down to the marrow of his bones. It had taken hours for him to cease his mind’s anxious queries about Buckminster, and poor Leon, enough to take his own much-needed rest. The imp-infested hospital had taken his toll on him, and he couldn’t solve any of these mysteries in his current state. He had to put on a brave face for his friends, his trusty sidekicks, and to do that, he had to be at peak performance.  </p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he finally dozed off, he could’ve wept in relief.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But his consciousness stirred, what felt like mere moments later, though it could’ve been hours. The sounds and shapes that made their way to his brain through his open eyes were slow and dulled, muffled as if through a thick wall of rushing water. Connecting the signals he received to his thoughts felt like a gargantuan effort, albeit a completely subconscious one. But now that he was unwittingly lucid, it was like being overly aware of his own breathing: he couldn’t turn it off.</p>
<p> His senses trickled in, one by one: the shifting shadows in the room, the warmth that lay beside him, the strange bumping noises coming from… coming from somewhere…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He groaned, forcing himself to sit up in bed. He took care not to jostle the sleepy Rainer to his left, who murmured something or other as he gently pulled his arm out from underneath her back. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to chase away the fog that clouded his vision so thoroughly. In his haze, he swung his legs off to the side of the bed, turning blearily towards the rustling within his walk-in closet.</p>
<p>“Fitz?” Rainer blinked at him tiredly, tugging gently at his nightshirt, her eyes seeming to glow as the moonlight cast shadows into every little divot between her nightgown sleeves and her delicate wrists.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He should’ve appreciated it, appreciated <em>her.</em> He wanted to, to fall back into the mattress and continue dozing as he held her close, and pretended like the troubles of that strange day didn’t exist. But he was drawn like a magnet, unable to stop drifting towards the shadow cast across his closet door, which hung ajar despite his irreconcilable penchant for closing each door and turning each lock <em>just so</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A soft whine. “Fitzroy, come back to bed.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Just a moment, dearest,” he whispered, making out the shape of a hooded figure, vaguely masculine in frame, who was rustling within the trunk of personal items he kept, far away from anyone’s prying eyes. He absently wondered if he should grab his weapon, adrenaline fighting its way through the fog of his trance as he thought to defend himself and his lover from the intruder-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Fitz, what’s wrong?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rainer, there’s someone in the-“</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He whipped back to face her, only to blink as he was struck with the sight of his bed: empty, save for a few pillows, and a thick down comforter. No one was there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>No one had <em>been</em> there, save for him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He staggered backwards with a jolt, a quiet <em>thump </em>registering in the back of his mind as a cold shock ran through his blood. He remembered, suddenly, and he was wide awake. He remembered that he and Rainer were <em>friends</em>, and nothing had ever happened between them, so why would she ever have been in his bed in the first place, and why wasn’t she there now-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh. It was a dream,” he murmured to himself, still reeling and breathing heavy from the shock of realization that he had still been inside a half of a trance, this whole time. He had hallucinated the prescence of a whole, living person. It was incredibly visceral, and quite disorienting.</p>
<p>With widened eyes, he whipped around once more to see his closet door closed, looking as undisturbed as it had ever been. Just to make certain, he padded quietly over to open the door slowly, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw that his trunk was right where he left it, locked and all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Goodness,” he breathed, resting his head against the closet door with a gentle <em>thunk</em>. It had only been a part of his strange, waking dream as well. His cheeks burned furiously, embarrassed at himself for having imagined something so outrageous.</p>
<p> It had felt so <em>real,</em> though. He couldn’t imagine what the boys would say, if he told them he had mistaken hugging a pillow for the soft embrace of his desired paramour. <em>Gods</em>, he would never hear the end of it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And what was that whole business about the hooded intruder, digging into his personal items? Perhaps it was a metaphor for something. But why would it be in the same trance-dream as a manifestation of his hopeless crush on the lovely Rainer, who was so incredibly out of his league?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What sort of subliminal message was this meant to be? Was it some sort of manifestation of fear, keeping him from confessing his feelings? Or was it something about the secrets he hid from the rest of the world, eating him up inside?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The figure had been so familiar, so <em>close</em>, if he had only been able to see their face, he might’ve made sense of it, but as it was…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m too tired for this,” he groaned, dragging his hands down his face, grateful for the lack of fake frames upon his nose at this very late hour. He shuffled back over to his now-clearly-empty bed and plopped himself down face=first, glad for his newfound privacy as he drifted off quietly, too exhausted to hear the soft creaking of a deadbolt sliding ever-so-carefully back into place.</p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Unbeknownst to Fitzroy, as he snoozed his way back into his trance, there was a genasi lad, crouched just outside his door, releasing a silent breath of relief as he set down his lock-picking tools. He removed his hood and used it to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, making sure to hide the garment at the bottom of the shared laundry basket in the middle of the Villain’s suite. As he crept silently back to his humble quarters in the en-suite, he was sure that his rapidly beating heart would cause sleep to elude him for the rest of the night.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em> That had been too damn close. </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please please please leave comments, likes, whatever the hell to let me know what you're thinking and if Fitzrain pining makes you as CRAZY as it makes me. Love you guys, thank you so much for all your support &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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